''Freewater'' is a 2022 children's novel by American author Amina Luqman-Dawson, and published by

Little Brown and Company Little, Brown and Company is an American publishing company founded in 1837 by Charles Coffin Little and James Brown in Boston. For close to two centuries it has published fiction and nonfiction by American authors. Early lists featured Emily D ...

. The story, about two young children who escape from slavery and find a community in the Great Dismal Swamp, won both the

Coretta Scott King Award The Coretta Scott King Award is an annual award presented by the Ethnic & Multicultural Information Exchange Round Table, part of the American Library Association (ALA). Named for Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin Luther King Jr., this award rec ...

and Newbery Medal in 2023.

Plot

Luqman-Dawson's book is set in the southeastern United States during its slavery era. Two children and their mother are fleeing together from a horrific life on a

plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...

. The children become separated from the mother during the attempt. After making their way into a swamp, they are rescued by a Black man named Suleman, an escaped slave himself. He takes them to "Freewater": a community of

Maroons Maroons are descendants of African diaspora in the Americas, Africans in the Americas who escaped from slavery and formed their own settlements. They often mixed with indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous peoples, eventually ethnogenesi ...

hidden deep in the Great Dismal Swamp. Freewater is populated entirely by people who managed to escape slavery, as well as their children. While the community of Freewater is a creation of the author, it is based on actual communities that existed in the area. The book is written with an alternating point of view, helping to develop a large and "multidimensional cast."

Reception

Luqman-Dawson's book has received generous praise. Kirkus Reviews calls the novel "An exceptional addition to the resistance stories of enslaved people," and singles out the setting's description for special praise: "...so vivid that it becomes a key aspect of the narrative." BookPage calls the story "historical fiction at its finest."

References

{{Newbery Medal American young adult novels Coretta Scott King Award-winning works Newbery Medal–winning works Novels about American slavery 2022 children's books Children's books about American slavery Children's books set in swamps Children's books set in the United States

Plot

Reception

See also

References